


Altean Magic

by Betery



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura's bias is showing, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Good Lotor (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mage Lance (Voltron), Mage Lotor (Voltron), Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 12:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30139695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betery/pseuds/Betery
Summary: When you get bored in a castle, there's not much to do aside from explore and read what you find in the nooks and crannies. Thanks to translation technology, Lance finds the best read EVER. Because magic is real, and Lance can use it!
Relationships: Lance/Lotor (Voltron)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Altean Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Got another plot bunny that wouldn't leave me alone!

Things were boring on the ship. Even the video game he had gotten from the earth shop at that space mall had started becoming boring. However, what wasn’t boring was the many _many_ different rooms in the castle ship he could explore.

Usually, he wasn’t the type to do things alone. At home he had a small farm to take care of with his family, so there was always something to do with someone but in space? In space, everyone paired off to do their own thing. Allura and Shiro had become absorbed in their coalition plans and political dalliances and such so much so they were only having two hour training sessions once every other day. Keith was off doing his angsty spy thing and the nerds were building shit in engineering.

It had taken way too long for Lance to figure out that all their science was beyond him and, thus, wasn’t welcome to their ‘Science Corner’.

Up to this point Lance had managed to find a sitting room, a theater room, a theater STAGE which he had had fun with for a couple days, reciting his favorite lines from his favorite movies and musicals. There was even an option to play out Altean theater one man shows. The process was as simple as choosing a play and role and the other ‘actors’ were preprogrammed holograms; however, it was all in Altean. It was untranslated so he couldn’t really participate. Watching was pretty fun, though.

The the plays that Lance had observed there was one that looked almost exactly like Romeo and Juliet, but they were doing these tricks with their hands to do certain things on stage that _totally_ didn’t look like fancy stage effects. It looked like they were _actually_ casting magic.

So, he wanted to find the playbooks and read them for himself!

The library was a place that had a LOT of information for Lance to sink his teeth into during the off hours.

The first time he came in here he picked up what he thought was some sort of fiction novel, but when Pidge translated it for him it turned out to be an autobiography for some Altean Chef. _Not_ fiction, nor a playbook.

Which then lead to Lance bringing pidge more digital books from the library to translate so he could find _something_ interesting. 

It only took the third book for Pidge to snap at him and throw him out of engineering. He had hoped that he could find at least one book to read, but he could try and beat his swimming record. That is, if he could remember how to get the pool on the floor again, and Allura said she was only going to show him once. And that was _before_ Lotor came in to take up all her time.

So that’s where he was, the pool room poking at different buttons in different combos just to see which one would allow the use of the pool.

“Hey bookworm!” Pidge had shouted from the entrance she walked in, holding up a data pad in one hand and a scanning device in the other. “I’ve got a translator you can use yourself. Now _please_ leave me alone?”

Lance grinned and took the gifts, “You’re a peach Pidge! Now…do you remember how to get the pool down?”

Pidge rolled her eyes and showed him.

He had such a wonderful friend.

With his new tool in hand, and after a lovely dip in the pool, he marched his way back to the library ready to learn or possible read some terribly written romances!

He looked at the different options. Some looked too bland, others didn’t even have titles on their spines, but there was one that Lance had glanced over time and time again with no clue what was in it. The digital book had a white spine and the symbol on the front that was embossed with a flower. The pages, like all the other digital books, glowed with holographic blue light.

He opened the book and started scanning the pages into the pad for him to read in bigger chunks. Thank god for speedy Altean download speeds! So much better than anything back on earth. He managed to scan in what appeared to be maybe the first couple of chapters and he leaned against the wall to get quasi-comfortable.

_Quintessence is the blood of the universe; many scholars and sorcerers had studied it and how to use it for the use of Alchemy. Enclosed here are instructions. Alchemy can be difficult, a thousand years prior…._

And Lance continued to read, he read about how a thousand years before the author was born magic was something rare and a large task. These alchemy usersers were revered for their capabilities of making fire by casting a spells, summoning strong breezes at sea to save stranded boats and most unique way of healing the ill and wounded.

There were spells to summon images from the mind to remember loved ones when you have nothing else of them in times of mourning and loss.

Lance was immediately reminded of the headsets that Allura gave them for their bonding moments. How he thought of his family, and others could see it.

If he could summon that image for himself with his eyes _open._ He could see his Momma’s smile again. He could see his Papa’s kind gaze as he taught Lance to swim and see his Abuelita again even though she’s been gone for _years_.

He wanted to learn how to do this, no, he _needed_ to learn how to do this, but he had to build up his skills. He had to learn how to _do_ it first.

So, he kept reading.

First was meditation and the manifestation of the quintessence aura. It was the key to harnessing his own life juice and the natural life juice of the stuff around him. He was 1000% certain that this would be easier in a place that had more…life to it. So he was going to have to rely solely on himself.

Which was fine, at this point he was used to relying on himself. Taking care of red, training on his own with the drones. Sometimes he even prepares the meals for everyone. Making sure they hydrate and eat.

He was exhausted when he got back to his room and he took a shower and put his face mask on, when he was done, he sat down on his bed and pulled out his data pad and started reading again.

_Alchemy is from the self, to want something and then to have it. Light in darkness, warmth in cold. To create light, envision warmth in the palm of your hand like the sun, ground the self in your quintessence and encant the spell ‘Leohyt ster’. Release the star._

So, he tried, and he tried and tried but he just wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong! Maybe his pronunciation was off? Piloting red was easier than this! And Red _hated_ him at first. It wasn’t nearly the same as being connected with Blue, or even with Voltron he had to connect with a totally different energy.

Wait. Maybe the answer was hiding under his nose the whole _time._

Lance closed his eyes, and gently closed his free hand. He thought about what it felt like to be connected with red, and to be in Voltron to connect with his inner energy.

All of him was buzzing with _something_ when said the spell. A something so familiar he almost wanted to giggle at the sensation.

 _Please work_ he prays silently and whispers the spell. Something blooms in his palm golden light is peeking out between his fingers and he uncurls his palm and a small golden ball floated up to his eye height.

It was so small and _perfect._ And the best part? He did it all on his own.

Lance flipped to the next spell.

His studies were coming along nicely and now, instead of mindlessly playing games or fighting drones with no purpose, he’s up to chapter 4 of the spells. He has to keep a shorthand set of notes logged into his Space Watch to remember them all, but it was pretty easy, most of the spells required were straight forward with their ‘articulations’ (which was basically how you move your hand before casting the spell.

He was stuck on the telekinesis spell. It required a lot of focus and there wasn’t a lot around here that he could just _practice_ on. Well, he did steal a scrap piece of metal that he used for many different practice spells. He’d blown it away with wind. Lance had even turned it into wood and back into metal. Those had been _easier_ for some reason.

“Okay you piece of scrap. Prepare to meet your maker- _Entencioun Movwa!”_ With the spoken spell he made the first step of the spell, the ‘net’ if you would, a circle of energy that has a blue tint of light to it and he pushed it forward to ‘catch’ the metal and it now glowed with the light, and he felt the tether tighen to his hand, and he took a deep breath and lifted his hand, palm facing up like he was holding the metal. He went slow and careful so the tether wouldn’t break.

The metal was about a foot in the air when his door opened. Unfortunately, his concentration wasn’t strong enough yet for him to be thinking about two things at once so the metal clattered back to the floor and he sighed, and turned around.

“Sup?” He asked to Coran and Allura who were looking at Lance with curiosity.

“I’m sorry did we interrupt anything?” Coran asked and Lance shrugged shaking the extra energy off of his hands.

“Not really, just finished actually. Whatcha need?”

This cheered up both Coran and Allura and both of them requested a milkshake.

Directly from Kaltenecker.

He laughed and waved for them both to follow them, “I’ll show you how to do it. Kaltenecker is an animal, not all that sentient so she can’t just milk herself.”

“I have no idea what that means!” Coran said with cheer, “But I look forward to the experience!”

Coran would live to regret those words.

Because Lance reached the section where Kaltenecker was being kept and he greeted her with some loving pets and coos. 

Allura and Coran also gave their greetings and Lance got the bucket.

“Uh, what is that for, Lance?” Allura asked and Lance just grinned.

“You’ll see.” And he reached under Kaltenecker and relaxed into the familiar pattern of milking. Reach, grasp, pull, and repeat. It didn’t take long to fill up the bucket.

“And here we are!” Lance announced, presenting the 100% space cow from earth milk. “It’s already pretty thick on its own if you want to give it a try.”

Pale, and breathless, Coran and Allura excused themselves from the room. Lance laughed and grabbed a cup to take a drink from the warm fresh milk, taking a drink and patting Kaltenecker on her side, “Don’t you worry Kaltenecker, what you’re going through is perfectly normal. They’re just silly aliens. When they’re a little older and mature we’ll try this again.”

Kaltenecker leaned down to each some of the Space Grass.

With grass came opportunity…and opportunity to grow some flowers! He grinned and sat on the ground and with one hand he fished out a packet of flower seeds and with his other he opened his phone to flip to the flower spell.

He was on his sixth flower, when an announcement pinged, “ _All paladins to the Bridge, suit up and be ready to mobilize.”_

Lance sighed to himself, _“Flos Behel”_ He cast one more time just for the heck of it, casting the green circle into the ground and this time a _blue_ flower bloomed, but it wasn’t where he planeted the seeds, “I’ll have to experiment more with this spell…” He got up and dusted off his pants. “Alright Kaltenecker, don’t cause any trouble while I’m gone.”

She mooed in farewell and he definitely saw her eyeing the flowers he had just encouraged to life. They were probably going to be gone by the time he got back. A shame, but more practice would be good. Maybe he could try visualization exercises to grow other stuff, like squash…Hunk would probably love it if Lance surprised him with a garden.

He arrived dressed and ready for battle. Matt and everyone else was already there.

“What’s up?” He asked everyone and Matt and Pidge moved to their positions.

“We picked up a lot of Galra fleet movement to this location,” Pidge said, pulling up a map for everyone to look at, “but it’s not registered as anything important, but here’s the _worse_ news- they’re mobilizing on orders of _Zarkon._ ”

Lance took a sharp breath in with everyone else. Allura was the first to gain composure, “Whoever they’re attacking we have to help.”

Shiro shook his head, “This sounds more like a trap to me. If we do investigate, we should gather intelligence instead of asking for a fight we’ll most likely loose.”

Pidge grinned, “It’ll only be a fight if they _see_ us.”

Matt’s jaw dropped, “Wait, ya’ll have _cloaking tech_? Awesome!”

Shiro frowned, “I don’t feel comfortable only sending in the green lion.”

Pidge’s smile was knowing, “I’m pretty sure I can upgrade it for Voltron, that way I’m _not_ alone.”

Lance gave a friendly roll of his eyes and bumped his shoulder with Pidge’s, “Yeah sure, totally came up with that _after_ your brother came back.”

Pidge rubbed the back of her head feigning sheepishness, “It’s actually something I’ve been working on for a while. The cloaking needs to constantly be monitored, and I can’t do that and pilot, but if I had a co Pilot-“

Matt grinned and fist bumped Pidge, “I am SO not missing out on this.”

It was an organized attack against Lotor, and the amount of Galra around aimed at one ship was _terrifying_ to watch. Especially when the cloak malfunction on Green. Exposing Pidge and Matt to the sea of enemy forces.

“ _Attention, citizens of the Galra Empire. From this day forward my son Lotor is to be considered a fugitive of the empire, all citizens are to use deadly force to stop him or any of his accomplices. He is an enemy of the empire. He is to be stopped at all costs.”_

Pidge managed to get the cloak working again and they retreated as fast as they could.

Lance took a deep breath when they got back, and he rubbed at his face. He had _never_ seen so many enemies in one place before. That could have been _very_ bad. Luckily with the recovered cloak and some quick moves on everyone else’s part they were able to make it out alive.

He took one breath, then two, and slapped on a smile to congratulate everyone else for a fairly successful mission.

Shiro gave him a wry smile in return, “Thanks buddy, you did pretty good out there as well. We all deserve a rest before we regroup and make our next move.”

The next move was playing a real-life version of GO. On the ‘rebel’ section of the map the only place left that was purely Galran was one planet, Naxzela. They would flush out the enemy for the whole territory claim, while also playing battleship against two death cannons. Lance had seen star wars and _knows_ that this could end very badly.

Shiro could make the plan sound as smooth as possible and easy pickings for them but there was just _something_ itching at Lance that something was wrong. It was like the universe itself was scratching at the back of his neck making him feel uneasy. Like Shiro’s words weren’t to be trusted, but he was far more excited that all of their efforts were going to culminate into something that would be a symbol to this whole sector of space.

The start of the mission had gone famously. They moved in claimed the cannons for themselves and were making an aerial attack on the fortresses on the Naxzela, but, of course, every ups had their downs. The two cannons that they were using as their main heavy hitters were taken out of commission. Even worse, none of them could move. It felt like the weight of a whole planet was pushing down on them. Even with them working in tandem and trying their hardest they couldn’t break free from the atmosphere.

They wanted to go out on foot and find the source that was causing the problem, and when Lance exited red he nearly fell over from the enormous energy pull at the center of Naxzela. It felt like doom was waiting for them, but what else could they do but try and fix it before everything is lost.

Allura was able to discern the energy source as an ancient Terraforming device. But it looked wrong and it _felt_ wrong too.

“I’m going to try and shut it down myself.”

“Allura that isn’t a good idea this energy-“

“I have to try, Lance.” She insisted and reached out to the orb to attempt to adjust the energy, but as Lance had thought it was too distorted and _angry_ at the first touch of foreign quintessence it lashed out to try and eliminate the source. But instead of pushing her back it latched on and just kept _sucking_ her energy right out of her.

They all cried out and pulled with all their might to pull her away from the device.

“Are you alright?” Lance asked.

“I am…but that energy is too powerful.”

Lance shook his head, “No. No I think it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do. Take energy and turn it into something else, like gravitational pulls. And it won’t stop taking until someone tells it to stop.”

“But why? For what purpose? And Lance how would you even-”

“Guys, I know why!” Hunk shouted as droids walked in and they had to take cover, “This place is made up of Hexamite! If hexamite it met with too much force it EXPLODES!”

“And let me guess?” Pidge shouted over her shield, “This whole planet-“

“IS A BOMB, YUP.” Hunk shouted and Lance gnashed his teeth.

“We gotta get out of here!” Someone (probably Shiro) shouted.

“Even worse than that- Naxzela has enough hexamite to reach 10 solar systems!”

It was bad. Really bad. Lance looked at the device glowing and sucking from all directions. There was something. Something he read in his alchemy book. Lance stabbed his shield into the ground and he opened his space watch to flip through the pages of the text he had scanned in.

_Sometimes technology is like a child throwing a tantrum. Adjust just one line of binary and all can be lost. To rectify malfunctioning machines, cast a circle to ground the spell and then enchant to cast._

But the spell circle required in the diagram was HUGE. There was no way he could make that this just his arm. Everyone was moving out, but he couldn’t move. He had to think.

Dammit if he had a stick a wand, a staff ANYTHING he could try and do this!

He grabbed his shield out of frustration and it melted in his hand, it melted and reformed. Turning longer and thinner into a new shape. A red lion formed at the top and it the staff that formed below it was segmented just right for him to hold. It _sang_ with quintessence energy in his hands. When it finished forming it wasn’t even heavy!

It was exactly what he needed.

 _“Lance where are you!”_ Shiro shouted, “ _We need to get back into formation!”_

“I’m sorry, but I can’t! There something I can try. But I don’t know if it’s going to work.”

 _“Then what’s the pointing of staying closest to ground zero?!”_ Pidge shouted over the com.

“We’re dead if I try and dead if I don’t.”

A massive magical wave burst from the orb thing, knocking Lance off his feet, everyone shouted at him again to respond to their hails.

“I’m okay, I just have to get my footing,” the signal that returned to him was only static.

Lance took a deep breath and closed his eyes holding his arms out so the staff was perpendicular to the ground and imagined Varadero beach on a calm day.

The spark ignited inside him and he grasped it mentally and pulled from that energy, making a small siphoned string to make the largest circle he ever made; it was wobbly in places but was sturdy.

With one hand holding the red staff he looked at the spell on his space watch.

 _“Iyarti,”_ He shouted, and the spell circle pulsed, _“Obijate calitrae-” The_ gravity worsened, sending him to one knee, _“jeg adenza- adenza sleg!”_

The circle turned gold and Lance pushed with all his might to wrap the spell around the orb, if it was going to take energy, take energy that would make it sleep!

Usually when he cast a spell, it settled into the object and then bent to his will, or formed to his artistic vision. But this was a tangible sensation of wrapping an orb in a thin sheet of magic, to try and hold it back.

This wasn’t just an object with a purpose someone was _fueling_ it with their own spell!

Lance just hoped he could buy everyone enough time to get away safely.

Or a miracle that would save 10 solar systems and possibly himself.

He held the line for what felt like an eternity, but something snapped. The push back from the other side of the spell broke and without the fuel source to power the weapon Lance’s spell took root and everything started powering down.

Gravity returned to normal he could breathe easier but every part of him ached. His staff returned to its stasis form.

“Naxzela is returning to normal!” Coran crowed over the restored communications line,

“Keith you did it!”

What did Keith do?

“I didn’t.” Keith countered, “It was Lotor, the cannon on his ship was the only thing powerful enough to take down the shield on Hagar’s ship.”

“Guys that’s not the only-“

But he was interrupted by another signal coming through.

_“Attention Paladins of Voltron, and rebel fighters; I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but I think it is time we had a discussion.”_

**Author's Note:**

> So, whatcha think? I know I'm using quotes from the show but I felt that it was prudent to do so! Anyway leave your thoughts below! Long, short, or just an emoji would really make my day!


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